


Out of the Silence

by Katzedecimal



Category: DCU, Flash Rogues - Fandom, The Flash (Comics)
Genre: Backstory, Deaf Character, Gen, ablism, audism, based on canon backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-26
Updated: 2013-12-26
Packaged: 2018-01-06 07:36:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1104161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katzedecimal/pseuds/Katzedecimal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Rathaways have spent millions to get their deaf child to hear.. but is it worth it to <i>him?</i></p><p>Originally posted on LiveJournal</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of the Silence

It hurt. He sat on the bench, shivering in the flimsy hospital gown, feet dangling high above the floor. Tears trickled slowly down his cheeks; he wasn't allowed any pills or medication today and the pain was a dull, throbbing ache on both sides of his face. It felt like someone squishing his head, like a grape. Briefly he wondered what it would look like if his head was squished; probably make a huge mess. At least it would stop hurting, maybe.

He became aware that someone was waving a hand in front of him, trying to get his attention, and looked up. "About time you noticed," Mommy said - she never really got the hang of tapping his shoulder, "Daydreaming again? You should be happy, Doctor Magnus says this will be the last operation. After this operation, you should be able to hear. Won't that be nice?"

...Yay. Supposedly it'd been six months since the first operation, but it seemed like he'd been living in the haze of pain forever. It dulled his senses and his interest, dulled his appetite, sapped all the life out of him. What had once been a perky little boy had faded to a shadow, pale and wan. His eyes slid away, wishing his nanny was here to interpret; he didn't have the energy to try to lip-read. Mommy turned his chin back towards her, her face annoyed, "You should be happy!"

'I am happy,' he signed, and she batted his hands down.

"Speak, Hartley. Not signing, speaking! You won't need signing after today."

"Yes, Mommy," he said. She shook her head and he realised he hadn't felt his throat, so he repeated himself and she winced.

"And maybe you'll stop shouting," she said, "And stop crying, big boys don't cry. It'll all be over soon." She hugged him, then went out to talk to Doctor Magnus.

Hearing couldn't possibly be worth all of this.

When he opened his eyes again, the nurse was maneuvering a gurney beside the bench. She smiled kindly and spoke with exaggerated clarity, "Are you ready to go?" He nodded and she helped him onto the bed. He lay down and tried to get into a position that didn't jar his head. She made a sad face and apologised, but he didn't even flinch when the IV needle was jabbed into his vein. It was just one more drop in a bucket of pain.

It was even colder in the operating theater. The first time he'd been wheeled in here, he'd been frightened; now he closed his eyes and didn't even look as he felt his arm being strapped down for the anesthetic. He'd panicked, the first time he'd felt that tingling pins-and-needles sensation in his brain - _in his brain!!!_ \- but now he just...

...and woke up in worse pain than ever. That, he'd expected. What he hadn't expected was

**_...noise._ **

It slammed into him, a cacaphony of sound, shocking him with its loudness. He cried out and the sound was louder than anything he could ever have imagined. Terrified, he clapped his hands over his ears and reeled back, toppling back over the bed rail onto the floor. The IV needle ripped out and the blood ran bright red down his arm.

He felt arms around him and looked up. A nurse was there with gauze and bandages. Sharp, stacatto sounds had joined the rest of the chorus of noise. Her mouth was moving too fast and he couldn't tell what she was saying. He screamed again and there was a horrible, horrible sound, so loud, too loud. He wailed in pain and fear and the nurse hugged him then bound up his wounds. The IV was put into his other arm, then he was given tranquilisers along with everything else. He was wheeled out of the recovery room in a drowsy stupor.

It was even louder out in the hospital halls. He pulled the blankets over his head, trying to block some of the overpowering noise. The bed stopped moving and he peeked out to see that he was back in his private room. He glanced around, desperately hoping to see his nanny. Instead he saw Doctor Magnus approaching him, smiling. "Good evening!" he said, watching as the little boy flinched at the sudden deep tones. A good sign. "That was a long operation," he said, keeping his lip movements clear, "It's the next evening!" The child just nodded numbly. "I want to do a few tests, Hartley, to see if the operation was a success." He was pretty certain it was, by the way the child was flinching at every sound. "I'm going to stand behind you and play some tones, like this," he pressed a button on his machine and a clear tone rang out... and the child screeched and scrambled backwards, clutching his head! O-kay, definitely a success. He forced himself to remain calm and smiling, "I'll turn the volume down. You tell me when it's at a comfortable level."

Doctor Magnus played the tone again, turning the volume down steadily until he could barely hear it himself. Finally the child indicated that the volume was alright. Magnus frowned; he couldn't hear it at all, though the display graph indicated the tone was indeed playing. "Alright, Hartley. Now, I'm going to stand behind you and play the tone, and you indicate which side you hear it on, okay?"

He played a tone and the boy hesitated, looking confused. Magnus wondered if he were able to distinguish one sound from another. _Probably not, brain has to learn how to sift and differentiate,_ he thought, excited. There was so much to learn from this child!! What an opportunity! "Wave both hands, then, Hartley," he said. The child didn't react. He leaned around so the boy could see his mouth and repeated, "Wave both hands if you can hear the sound but can't tell if it's left or right side, okay?" The boy nodded. He ducked back, grinning - so much to learn! A fantastic opportunity to observe how the brain learns to process sound and language!

He played the tones that he couldn't hear but the boy clearly could ( _Amazing! Fantastic!_ ), noting how the both-hands waving quickly changed to right-or-left hands ( _Already!! Fantastic, simply fantastic!_ ) This was tremendously exciting: The implants were already allowing the boy to hear at volumes well below the normal human range. The opportunity to explore whether the human brain could handle sub-sonic and super-sonic frequencies was just too good to pass up and he was eager to see how far into each range the implants were reaching. _All in good time,_ he thought, seeing the pain and fatigue in the child's face. "That's enough for today," he said, and turned around as the boy's parents entered the room. "Good news, folks," he announced, "The operation was a complete success!"

"What do you think of that then, Hartley? Hartley? _Hartley!"_ Osgood Rathaway threw up his hands and scowled at his wife, "Maybe he really is retarded, not just deaf -- even Jerrie knows her own name!"

That was the only downside to this experiment: Having to deal with Osgood and Rachel Rathaway. They treated the child more like a doll than a little boy. If it weren't for their willingness to pay millions of dollars and sift through doctor after doctor looking for a cure for their child's deafness, he'd've doubted that they loved their son at all. They didn't visit him much and the boy seemed closer to his nanny than to his mother. "He's never heard his name," Doctor Magnus chided, turning the boy to face his parents, "Right now, he hears, but he can't recognise what he's hearing -- it's all noise to him, right now. His brain is already learning to focus in on sound direction. Your brains learned all of this in infancy; his is having to learn it now. It'll take some time but he's a quick boy, very intelligent despite what you believe."

Rachel Rathaway stepped around her husband and took her son's hands. "Hartley?" she looked at the fresh bruises swelling the child's face. She took a tissue and gently wiped the trickling tears. "Hartley," she said, pronouncing clearly, "Hartley."

Hartley watched his mother's mouth, wondering what she wanted, why she kept repeating his name. Then it dawned on him -- his name. The sharp, rippling sounds were his name. He said his name and knew immediately that he'd been saying it wrong all this time. He tried again, trying to make his sounds match hers.

She smiled and tapped her chest, "Mommy." He'd been saying that wrong, too. He repeated the word after her. Then she hugged him and he wept.

"We have to go now, Hartley," she said, drawing back after a few minutes, "We have a press conference. We're going to tell everybody that you can hear now. Isn't that nice?" Hartley nodded and wiped his eyes, glancing around. Doctor Magnus had slipped out and his nanny still wasn't there. At least Daddy looked happy for once. "Sleep well now, baby," she told him, kissing his forehead. Osgood punched his shoulder lightly and Hartley choked back the tears when the sudden movement jarred his head. Daddy didn't like it when he cried.

Then he was alone.

He pulled the blankets up and tried to sleep but the pain and the unfamiliar noise kept him awake. He wasn't allowed to bring Mister Squeaks to the hospital; they said the mouse plushy couldn't be sterilised and might give him an infection. Another wave of pain made him whimper and the sound intrigued him. He made a few wordless tones, listening to the sound of his own voice.

* * * *

He sat in a little booth, following the instruction to raise his hand whenever he heard the tone. He felt dopey from the medicine that dulled the pain to a steady ache. The tones were getting fainter and harder to hear; finally he shook his head, carefully.

 _Fantastic!!_ Doctor Magnus thought, staring at the readings. The child was hearing tones well above what a cat could hear. Even bats couldn't hear some of the tones this child was reacting to! And that was just the high Hertz frequencies, saying nothing of the low frequencies! The implants were performing far better than expected; coupled with the child's rapid learning, the experiment was yielding incredible results.

Including one of the Rathaways' fondest hopes. The sound of his own voice was too much for the little boy to bear -- Once having to shout in order to feel his throat, now he spoke barely above a whisper. Doctor Magnus hoped that that would correct itself once the boy grew accustomed to his hearing and learned how to control the implants, but he suspected that the child would always be soft-spoken from now on. He just had that sort of personality, it seemed.

"The prognosis is excellent," Doctor Magnus said, "He's already learning to distinguish voices from other sounds, and to identify the direction that a sound is coming from. He's beginning to associate sound combinations with words, so his nanny should begin... how is she, anyways, has she been ill? I haven't seen her lately."

"Oh, we let her go," Rachel Rathaway replied.

Doctor Magnus blinked, "I beg your pardon?"

"Well, with Hartley able to hear now, her services are no longer required," Osgood said, "He's old enough now, he doesn't need a nanny and when his language skills are up to par, he can go to St. Peter's Academy." He drew himself up proudly, "That was my school."

"Hartley's language skills are precisely why he still needs his nanny," Doctor Magnus protested, "As a hearing child of deaf parents, she was uniquely suited to help him make this transition."

"Surely any speech pathologist could do that," Osgood said stiffly. He hated any implication that he had erred. "If what you say is true, it should only be a temporary measure."

"Y-yes," Magnus said, "But hardly necessary when his nanny..."

Rachel made a distasteful moue, "Well, we can't hire her back _now,_ think how it would look."

Osgood nodded. "We'll hire the best speech pathologist available, Doctor Magnus," he said decisively then smiled, "Money's no object where our son is concerned."

* * * *

"They drilled into his skull?"

"Yeah, he had to, to put the components in. He took out most of his inner ear and replaced it all with his super-cyber-nanotechnology."

"And it really goes right into his brain?"

"Yeah, it's tied into the aural nerve and seats into the temporal lobes. I talked to Dr. Magnus's theater nurse a couple of times, it's just amazing what he can do. That's one lucky little kid. His parents must really love him."

"Don't talk to me about his parents!! I've never seen such insensitive people in all my life!"

"Whoa, Jean...!"

"Yeah Jean, they just spent a couple of million getting their kid's hearing fixed!"

"Yeah, so where are they? Why's he spending every night all alone? Donna on 7-3 says they come in, spend maybe half an hour with him, if that, then leave again and she doesn't see hide nor hair of them for the rest of her shift!"

"Kelly on 3-11 says the same, actually. She says she might see them once every couple of days."

"They hired a really top-notch speech pathologist for him though, and his dad brought him that See'n'Say..."

"You know what he did?? Margie, you wanna know what that bastard did?? That poor little kid's got holes drilled in his skull, his outer ears and part of his scalp were peeled up and stitched back, he's got implants in his brain, and to top it off, he's overwhelmed by all the sounds he's never heard before. So what does that.. that **jackass** do?? -- he tells him to man up and stop crying!!"

"What?!"

_"He's eight years old!!"_

"Actually he's almost nine..."

"Shut up, Margie."

"I'd like to see _him_ take all of that and not cry _his_ eyes out!"

"Okay, yeah, that... that's.. wow. He really said that?"

"And then he gave him shit for taking the See'n'Say apart."

"What?"

"Yeah, he took it apart to see how it worked."

"Oh my god! Ahahahaha!"

He lay awake, idly toying with the sheets. The voices of the night nurses blended into the background noise. Although he could catch a word here and there, he didn't have the energy to try to distinguish them. His head hurt, he was tired and he couldn't sleep. He was hungry but stress, fatigue and medication kept his tummy nauseated and he got sick if he tried to eat too much. He felt weak and listless and wondered if he would starve to death. Would that take a long time? He hoped it wouldn't. Daddy still didn't seem happy with him, he missed his nanny, he was pretty sure his speech pathologist didn't like him, and he wondered if he would ever sleep again. So far, hearing had been an awful lot of pain and precious little reward.

And then he realised that he was hearing something new.

It was completely unlike any of the other sounds. Not like the machinery hums, not like the voices, not like the traffic noises from outside. He tried to focus on it... then realised he _was_ focussing on it -- zeroing in on the strange new sound, bringing it to greater clarity and prominance over the other sounds. He frowned, then concentrated and realised he could do that with the voices too. He focussed again on the new sound, coming from... outside of the room, over.. there. He slid off the bed with a thump then shuffled across the room and opened the door. He looked up and down the hall, trying to pinpoint the source of the strange sound.

"Hey, look... It's the little deaf kid."

"Oh, he hears the music!"

"Yeah, what're we listening to anyways? Lorraine?"

"Oh, it's Brahm's Lullaby. That little guy hasn't been sleeping much and Doctor Magnus says he's really sensitive to noise right now, so I thought that might drown out some of the background noise."

"Ohhhhh look at his little faaaaace."

He reached up to touch the object. He'd seen radios and boomboxes before but, naturally, never paid much attention. It vibrated softly under his fingers. The sound it made was... he'd never imagined anything could _sound_ beautiful. Up until now, his experience of sound had been frightening but this... this was sweet and clear and, and... This wasn't frightening, this was... this was...

"Good call, Lorraine."

"Yeah... I think we're witnessing a miracle here, ladies."

...this was worth the pain.

**Author's Note:**

> In canon, after receiving the multi-million dollar cybernetic implants, Hartley Rathaway became obsessed with sound, acoustics and music. It's heavily implied that his parents' greed and audism (oh my god were they ever audist!) contributed to Hartley becoming a super-villain, The Pied Piper.


End file.
